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Two scenario's, first true, second imaginary. 1). Keys with cork ball left lying around. Dog grabs ball. After some struggle keys and cork ball recovered. Big lump missing from ball. Days later keys drop in canal. Still float to surface but out of reach. Daft dog sees ball in water, jumps to fetch amid loud cheering. Three adults soaked to skin retrieving wet dog over steep canal piling. Dog disappears through hedgerow with cork ball and keys. Farmer shouts at three wet adults for trampling on his crops. Two days later after new locks fitted and nice AA man got us replacement car keys, daft dog goes through gap in hedge and re-appears with cork ball and keys and drops them in owners lap! Overall cost price of a new padlocks and a dry cleaning bill for some clothing. I still have my cork ball (with a bite out of it) that works and the bonus an extra set of useless keys! 2.) Keys with inflatable floating device, left lying around. Dog grabs. Inflatable device inflates inside dog. Vet saves dogs life and recovers keys. Overall cost - massive vets bill and no flotation device. Which scenario would you go for. I think that the 2nd one is the obvious choice. That stupid Springer Spaniel needs to be taught a lesson!

We dont need any signs stating the bleeding obvious. Its about time people accepted their own mistakes rather than all the moaning about danger. Life is dangerous unless we lock ourselves in the garden shed and never go out..........

Is there actually any LAW or just something the caravan world thought would be a good idea, after all you don't need a BSC of equivalent for a caravan but the risks are similar or even greater' Edit, OK I see there is a law, probably because sometime prior to 1968 caravan sites were popular and there were probably several fires, but do we really want a raft of mooring regulations brought in for moored boats. Marina owners having to reduce their occupancy by 50% twice as many marinas required charging twice the price. What about visitor moorings, we all complain when boaters don't share mooring rings so leaving gaps, or wont let You breast up at busy places. Mind you don't open the box and let it all out.

Hi Kitman, There's no shame in posting the truth, it's a rare commodity these days! Your tale reminds me about when I was in business. I used to spend around £12K a year on advertising my comapany through various media outlets, one being Yellow Pages. As usual, once a year they would send one of their voluptuous young reps (that was just the men) around in an attempt to pursuade me to upgrade my advertising space and yes, there was always that exlusive offer included in the package. This particular rep offered me 'first page' advertising in my specialist area of the book if I were to take a half page insert. As business was becoming increasingly competitive, I agreed, but only upon the gurantee that I would be first in line, especially as my company name began with an 'A'. When the book was published, I was astounded to find that my insert was not first but sixth in line. I immediately contacted the publishers demanding an explanation. Their smug answer was that they were not allowed to give anyone order of preference, regardless of the space designated, or, any alpha-numeric order. When I scrutinised the first ad in the book on my business area, I noticed tiny little numbers that were printed around the border of the copy insert. These numbers began with noughts and 1's and obviously had some sort of impact on priority placement. Still, after reporting my findings to the publishers, they denied being complicit in any wrong doing. From their reaction and more importantly, the ineffectiveness of my advertisement, I stopped my fee payment of £6,000. As you would expect from such a respectable company, they threatend me with no end of legal action to recover their money, but failed miserably. I wonder whether my findings, regarding the tiny border numbers, had any sway upon their reluctance to pursue the case further. I never advertised with Yellow Pages again and their underhand tactics ironically encouraged me to develop my own web site, that in turn, created more enquiries than I'd ever had with 'paper' advertising. Mike

Your landlord may have quite innocently charged you 20%, but it should only be 5%. A very decent landlord of some moorings I know well charged 20% on the electric on the advice of his accountants, but their advice was wrong. It is no skin off your landlord's nose - he will get back the overpayment to HMRC in his/her next VAT return. One of the confusions is that if you consume, as a business, more than so many KWh per month, the 20% VAT rate kicks in. But never as a private/domestic user. The landlord, if VAT registered, claims back the 20% in their VAT return anyway. Glad to be of help - that's what we're all on here for,I would hope, to assist fellow boaters with useful advice. Dominic.

WOW that is seriously bad news if they sold the house to plough the proceeds into that shambles Here Here, I was not and never have been rude to Tony or his wife and yet he spoke to me as if I were something on the bottom of his shoe, yes I got all my money back (£1,200) but he still was very rude to us. I received the rubber cheque, which cleared 2nd time round. I called him a scoundrel and a blaggard, having been on the receiving end of his nasty bullying tactics I earned that right to call him that

Glass bowl. If in the engine compartment it must be fire resistant to ISO 10088 standard (2.5 minutes at 600 deg.C) Many glass bowled filters do not meet this standard. If you get one that does, make sure that you keep documentation. If the BSS examiner can not see or identify any markings or see proof of certification to this standard the boat will not pass the examination.